Obama to take on Twitterverse in town hall

President Barack Obama will take on the Twitterverse next week when he hosts a Twitter town hall at the White House.

Obama will take questions on jobs and the economy during the July 6 event. People from across the country will submit their questions via Twitter, the popular social media service that limits messages to 140 characters.

The event will also mark the White House's first "Tweeup" _ that's an in-person gathering of people who are connected through Twitter. A portion of the town hall's live audience will be drawn from people who follow the White House on Twitter.

The president has taken questions from social media before, including during a town hall hosted by Facebook earlier this year.

The looming question is whether the president himself will tweet during the town hall. Obama aides said Thursday that the president would give verbal answers to most questions, with the entire event being streamed online.

Obama's presidential campaign said last week that Obama is starting to personally tweet through the official account bearing his name. Tweets sent by the president using his Twitter account will be signed "-BO."

Twitter users can submit questions for the president using the hashtag (hash)AskObama.